Business News for Mohave County, Arizona:: MohaveBusiness.com Magazine serving Kingman, Bullhead City, Lake Havasu City, Laughlin, Needles and the Tri State Area

PHOENIX – The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality has awarded a $300,000 grant that will allow Lake Havasu City to continue to replace septic tanks with new connections to the city’s wastewater system.

The grant will be used to offset the cost of closing 1,194 residential septic tanks, which are being connected to the wastewater system. The homes are located in the Palm Tree and Cisco neighborhoods in the northeast part of the city, where conversion to the wastewaster system is expected to be completed by next year.

The decommissioning process includes surveying the property, locating septic tanks, placing wastewater lines, and pumping and crushing the tanks.  

The city’s wastewater pipes and treatment plant will help to protect the waters of Lake Havasu, which have been polluted by nitrates and other contaminants that leach from septic tanks to groundwater to the lake itself.

PHOENIX - We have now completed a 2009 legislative session which was dominated by work on a balanced state budget, and yet failed to produce one. Or, if you prefer, failed to produce one that Gov. Jan Brewer would be willing to sign. This is in part the fault of the Legislature, in part the fault of the governor.

Of course, many in those provinces will tell you that it’s mainly the fault of the Secretary of Homeland Security.  Janet Napolitano may now be keeping the nation safe, but she did not leave the state fiscally sound.

Having said that, the matter is no longer about assigning blame but charting a way out.  And it’s also true that given the state’s revenue shrinkage amid the current recession, the budget would be under stress even if it hadn’t been grown too quickly. It would just be under less stress, and the solution set would be less painful.  The state’s politicians are now about the business of distributing that pain, not a job most of them relish.

It’s against this fiscal backdrop that the subject of the Arizona’s gaming policy has come due for review. Briefly expressed, that policy holds that some number of the state’s Native American tribes shall be allowed indefinitely to reap billions of dollars from gambling receipts, and everyone else shall reap precious little.